The Old City Hall


       Let's go now to the Freedom s Square, which, long ago, was named
   the Marching Square, and also the Prince Eugen Square.  The name
   of today, Freedom s Square, was given first- only for a short
   period of time- in 1848, when Johann Nepomuk Preyer
   communicated, from the balcony of the Old City Hall, the
   citizens  adhesion to the revolution.

       The square is surrounded by important buildings, but we ll stop
   first in the front of the Old City Hall. The local population,
   Romanian and Serbian, under the Turk occupation, had its own
   administration, kept even under the new occupation. In a
   previous chapter we mentioned the Orthodox Magistrate house that
   used to be on the same place where today is the "Nikolau Lenau"
   High School; it has to be mentioned that beside this magistrate,
   after 1717, in Timisoara also functioned a German Magistrate,
   Thobias Balthasar Hold from Frankenhausen (Bavaria) being
   Timisoara s Mayor in the year 1718. In December 24, 1731, Peter
   Solderer, Timisoara s mayor was named the "Judge of the City"
   until 1813, laid the brick at the foundation of the future
   German City Hall. After some sources, the building was finished
   in 1734. The certain thing is that on February 15, 1735, the
   election of the mayor took place in the new City Hall, Peter
   Solderer being reelected. On the front top of the building there
   is a coat of arms of the town, representing an open gate between
   two cannons of a very strong fortified fortress, received by the
   German community in 1718. After the restoration from 1782 (under
   the leadership of the architect Joseph Aigner), the front of the
   building was redone in the Renaissance style. After the 1849
   bombardments, the building was redone again, and suffered other
   transformations during the XIX and XX centuries. The building
   has two parts; the old part has a symmetrical facade and a gate
   on top of which there is a balcony and four tall arched windows
   belonging to the meeting room; the new part was first a private
   residence having on its facade a solar clock. At the left of the
   entrance there is an inscription in the Turkish language, being
   supposed that here it might existed a Turkish public bath.
   Aurel Decei, the specialist in Turkish culture, translated the
   inscription and arrived at the conclusion that the old
   supposition had no basis [21].

       Long ago, in the meeting room of the City Hall, there were a lot
   of paintings hanging on the walls representing important
   dignitaries of the town, as well as, emperors; among them, a
   painting of large dimensions, that is presently at the Museum of
   Banat, is representing the scene in which Dr. Karl Telbisz, the
   Mayor of Timisoara, accompanied by the city councilors and
   magistrates, salutes the Emperor Franz Josef I on September 16,
   1891, on the same place where the Petrovaradin Gate used to be,
   in front of the theater.

       The Emperor was visiting the industrial exposition from Banat.
   The painting was done by Johann Walder, teacher at the "Nikolaus
   Lenau" High School deceased in 1902 at Timisoara. In 1949, when
   the Old City Hall did not correspond any more with the demand of
   the town s development, the actual City Hall was moved in the
   building across the Capitol movie theater, which housed till
   then the Business High School.
   Across from the Old City Hall is placed "Casa Comandantului", or
   "The Commander s House"; the army commander, also holding the
   title of governor of the Serbian-Banatian Voivodina, was living
   here. In the hall behind the gate, it used to be a marble
   placard with an inscription that read: "In the memory of the
   Emperor Franz Josef I, who held his court here between 14-16,
   placed June 1853". During the Turk occupation the Beglerbeg
   lived here, and it is said the garden used to be magnificent.
   The Military Casino is on the West side of the square; the
   building was finished in 1775, has the same name today, and its
   rooms were and are even today at the disposal of military and
   commercial society [22].

       Across from the Military Casino there is another important
   edifice, the former Agricultural Bank, a four story building,
   designed in the Renaissance style with a very good taste ornated
   fronton. Long ago, on this place, it used to be a one story
   building - the main guard  residence - in front of which two
   cannons were resting. When this building was restored, stored
   powder gun barrels were found in its basement. It also should be
   mentioned that on the back of this building, in the Saint George
   Square, there is the imposing palace of the "First Saving House"
   ("Prima Casa de Economii").